Bloomberg News -- "Target hasn't opened a single store in Canada, and already Wal-Mart wants Canadians to know it's the price leader north of the border. Wal-Mart Canada will lower prices on 10,000 products in July. The company called the sale, which it says will save customers $50 million next month, the biggest in Wal-Mart's 18-year history in Canada.While Target's Canada debut is at least six months away, part of Wal-Mart's strategy is to get out front in the brand messaging wars. Minneapolis-based Target plans to open more than 100 stores in Canada starting next year. Last year, Target paid $1.85 billion to acquire the leases of as many as 220 Zellers stores, a Canadian discounter, with plans to convert many of them into Targets."MP: Some of the economic lessons here are: 1) consumer sovereignty, 2) intense "cutthroat" competition is good for consumers, 3) Walmart's everyday low prices provide obvious direct benefits and cost-savings to its own customers, but also provide indirect benefits and cost-savings to all of those customers who may never shop at Walmart and only shop at Target or other retailers. Reason? Walmart's low prices provide a powerful form of price discipline on all of its competitors, who would be able to charge higher prices in the absence of Walmart.

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2011
Jan. 13 – Effectively paving the way for its move into Canada, Target Corporation announces the purchase of 220 leasehold interests from Zellers Inc. for $1.825 billion. The company says it plans to invest more than $1 billion in store upgrades before opening 100-150 Canadian stores in 2013.
Jan. 18 – Target appoints Tony Fisher to head Target Canada. Mr. Fisher previously held a variety of leadership positions within Target, most recently serving as vice-president of merchandise operations.

Target Corp. became a retail phenomenon — and a stock market darling — with a rare mix of hip products and bargain prices.
Whether the company can stick to that playbook is now in doubt.
Target stunned investors on Tuesday by abruptly announcing that it would move prices further down market, into the realm of its No. 1 rival, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and accept lower profit margins as a result.

Some Canadian landlords, fearful Target Corp. wouldn’t succeed in Canada, demanded that any leases signed by the subsidiary here be backed by its Minneapolis head office.
Canada’s largest real estate investment trust, RioCan, indicated Thursday that it would be mostly unaffected financially by the downfall of the retailer which disclosed it will be closing its 133 Canadian stores — a move that comes after it paid $1.8 billion to buy 220 locations from Zellers Inc., a subsidiary from Hudson’s Bay Co., in 2011.

TORONTO — Wal-Mart’s suppliers may balk at paying new warehousing fees or extended payment terms imposed by the retailer’s U.S. division, and some will have to seek financial help to get through the time crunch, experts say — but it’s unlikely any of them will want to stop doing business with the world’s biggest mass merchant.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the parent company of retail chain Walmart Canada, announced the measures in June and a report last week suggested some U.S. suppliers would seek legal recourse against what they deem to be unfair measures by the retailer.

TORONTO — Canada’s largest supermarket chain has big plans for expansion this year, as it increases its footprint in the competitive grocery market.
Loblaw Companies Ltd. (TSX:L) says it will build 50 new stores and renovate or improve more than 100 existing stores in 2015. The additions will be across the country, and Loblaw’s estimates it will create about 5,000 jobs at its corporate and independently-owned stores.

Target Corporation (TGT), the second-largest US discount retailer after Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT), has been battling reduced in-store traffic over the last few quarters, amid a challenging retail environment for brick-and-mortar retailers.

MINNEAPOLIS — Target is bringing in an outsider as its CEO for the first time as the retailer fights to redefine itself to American shoppers.
The Minneapolis-based company said Thursday that it named PepsiCo executive Brian Cornell to the top spot, replacing John Mulligan, who had been acting as interim chief executive since May.
Mulligan had stepped into the temporary post after former CEO Gregg Steinhafel resigned following a large data breach in the runup to the holiday shopping season.

This Easter, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. aired a television commercial promoting its Ad Match Guarantee. In it, an exuberant clerk touted the policy’s benefits to a shopper named “Janette” from Lithonia, Georgia.
“That price?” he said, pointing to an advertising circular the woman had brought in. “Wal-Mart will match it right at the register. Yeah, and you don’t even need your ad!”

TORONTO — Hudson’s Bay Co. appears to be winning more praise from shoppers, while Target has lost ground in recent months but both retailers trail Costco in customer satisfaction, according to surveys from Forum Research.
The market research firm says 40% of the consumers it polled last week were “very satisfied” with their experience at HBC in the last 12 months — up from 35 per cent in Forum’s previous poll, done four months earlier.

Does this sound familiar? 1. At its peak, the retail chain had nearly 16,000 stores nationwide, with a retail presence in almost every state. Critics charged it with competing unfairly by offering too-low prices.